The Darkest Secret

‘I need to tell you a secret. My deep, dark, secret. Will you keep it secret? Can you keep a secret?’

    With a freshly manicured fingertip, (a smoothly rounded fingernail, dark blue, high gloss), Harry tipped down her specs just enough to look over their wafer-thin gold frame. Her eyes narrowed, her eyebrows tightened and a short vertical line appeared between them, (the first line I’d ever seen on her perfect face), she leant forward slightly across the table:

    ‘Dulce! How can you even ask such a thing? We’ve been friends for thirty years. Ever since our awful year at the Abbey. We’re blood sisters for heaven’s sake!’

     Well, that put me in my place! But maybe it didn’t entirely ease the flutters in my stomach. It was just such an enormous risk. But I had to share my news with someone. Someone I must trust with my life. Literally. Harriet and I had been inseparable right through school and Uni: she must be the one; but then I didn’t know where to begin my story.

    The waitress, smart, young, pretty, was heading across the room. I’d get a few minutes to think this through. Harry likes Taylor’s Yorkshire tea – builders’ tea – (she also likes her men strong and dark – builders sometimes). I ordered Lipton Yellow. We’d have a scone to share, (here they make their scones the size of saucers).  

    Then I could avoid it no longer. ‘I’m pregnant’. I tell her, looking down at the tea pots. Whispering. ‘Six weeks. Twins. They’re not Tarquin’s - I know they’re not.’

    I hadn’t seen Harry for over two months. She knew nothing of Justin. She knew nothing of the night that Tarquin slapped me, nor of other nights (I’d spared her). He hit me hard, so hard he knocked me against the welsh dresser, cutting me deeply behind my ear. A badly bruised cheekbone too. He was sorry of course. As he always is. All apologies, solicitous. He cleaned me up, gave me a local, carefully stitched the wound and tucked me in bed. Later he got into bed with me, hugged me. Raped me.

    I have pics of damaged me, to add to my collection.

    I opened up to Harry. ‘I haven’t told T. They’re not his babies. I’ve heard, of course, of women “just knowing” these things, but I never believed it. Besides it wasn’t the right time of my month’.

    Harry poured our teas, buttered our scone and spooned the strawberry jam. ‘Dammit Dulce! Why didn’t you phone me? Why do this alone?’

   My half scone was warm, light and the jam chunky with fruit. This must be the best tea-room in Surrey, on the best street. I turned my face away, ‘I wasn’t sure I wanted to keep it. Until I learnt I was having two, then I knew I couldn’t do away with two. Besides it’s different now I know they’re Justin’s.’

   Startled, she seemed to jerk back. ‘Justin! Who is Justin? Why haven’t you me told this.’

   ‘Shhh’. I whispered. ‘Tarquin loathes him. They’re colleagues at Mary’s. If he finds out he just might kill me. And the babies. Seriously. You don’t know what he’s capable of.’

    Harry leant forward and gestured, curling her fingers. ‘Give’.

   ‘He’s younger than T, fifteen years younger. My age. A surgeon too, a “junior cutter”. But beautiful. His voice is warm, low, gentle. A voice to cast spells. It did over me. The opposite of Tarquin who, as you know, is a big guy with an even bigger voice. Justin’s eyes see into my soul. Blue, the colour of old sea ice. You’ve seen the pics of that melting glacier in the Antarctic?’

    She can see I’ve zoned out. Dreaming.

   ‘K, Dulce, it’s so obvious you’re crazy for this guy. But I want more. I need more. How you met. You still seeing him?’

    ‘Well’, I tell her, ‘T has a fancy new sports car. A big Aston Martin something and somewhere at the hospital he’d lost his keys. I was going up to town anyway to see my prof (I’d just submitted the first complete draft of my doctoral – he loves it by the way) so I was to drop off spare keys. Which I did. Literally. The cleaners were polishing the corridor – you know how anal they are at Mary’s – must be a mirror finish. I slipped, banged my knee hard against the wall and Justin was there to grab my hand. He held it to steady me and it was, like, it was all I’d ever been waiting for, all my life, a shiver down my spine. No, much more, it was an earth tremor. Off the scale.’  

   The waitress came over again (as they do – unfailingly at the wrong time): we ordered another scone and hot water for the tea pots. The tea room door was wedged open: it was a spectacular day. Pigeons arguing in the sycamores. The sky fast with puffball clouds.

   ‘Go on. Don’t stop there! You can’t wait for the waitress!’

   ‘Okay’, I said, ‘Now the weird part. As I stood, my knee gave way under me. Justin held me, stopped me from crashing down. We were right outside one of the Doctors’ on call rooms. Justin had been heading there for an hour’s rest – he’d just finished three hours in theatre. Still in his greens. Leaning on him we went in and he helped me to lie down. I’d never been in one of those rooms: they’re super smart. A single divan bed – not those standard hospital things – all tubular steel – and a small shower room. Fresh flowers. None of that old, bitter, medicinal smell. What was so very, very strange: I couldn’t let go of his hand. He couldn’t let go of mine. Those eyes of his held me, I couldn’t look away. Later I learnt he’d had the same earthquake reaction as I.   

   ‘Wow’, said Harry, ‘I’m so, so envious. You read of stuff like that but can go through an entire life without finding it’.

   Our second scone arrived and I carried on with my story. ‘Finally Justin broke our trance or fugue or whatever it was - “aren’t you Dulce Roberts, Tarquin’s wife?” I just nodded. I couldn’t yet speak. Eventually we had to let our hands slip from each other’s. He examined my knee, gently. He didn’t bend or twist or push like a physio would and then he went out, came back with a porter and wheelchair and told me he’d called my husband to take over. He whispered he’d phone me and then left. All that time I still hadn’t said a single word to him, not one. I had met him before, very briefly at some function, and he hadn’t made much of an impression. So why this?’

      I sat back against the padded back of the bamboo framed chair, slid my fingers over the circular pink vein marble tabletop to give myself a breather before the difficult part. ‘Next day he phoned me. He didn’t say who was calling – he knew he didn’t need to. “I’ve thought of nothing else but you - I’ve no idea what that was between us but I have to see you. Soon”. We met at the Woodlands Park – you know the place in Chessington? We had coffee. I don’t know what we talked of. Then our hands touched across the table and that was it. We took a room.’

    Harry was stunned. Her jaw dropped. ‘Dulce you can’t stop there! You must tell me all. Details!’

    ‘Okay’. I said. ‘But not here. Let’s walk.’

    We paid and left. There’s a small park nearby with shade trees, a pond and slatted benches. I started to speak: ‘Harry, I’m not giving you all the gory details. But I will tell you a little of it. He held me and said, “not a word. Not a single word for an hour.” Then it was unbelievably good. He strung me up to concert pitch for that hour.’

    I’d never been one to speak of sex. Not even to Harriet. I stood and stretched and watched the mallard ducks for a minute or two. Small children throwing bread. Then I  carried on – ‘Afterwards we did talk. We lay for a long time. We have so many of the same interests it’s like we’re  the twins. Lovers, but each one’s missing half. Tarquin likes to believe I’m a dumb bimbo that he can slap about. He thinks I’ll ignore his thing for fifteen-year-old schoolgirls. Ignore the awful publicity; there’s been constant press at the house. But Justin, he knows I have a good brain – a great brain prof tells me. When I told him of my work he spoke of George Eliot – you remember “Middlemarch” Harry? He said that Tertius Lydgate, the physician, so reminds him of T - focused entirely on medicine – oh, well, apart from girls obviously. Justin is the opposite, he’s interested in everything, 19^th century literature, trees, philosophy. He quotes Hitchens. On his violin he played Viva La Vida for me: not David Garratt of course but still lovely. How lucky am I to have found someone who shares my passions and loves me?’

    Harry and I stayed on that bench and talked and talked. But I didn’t dare tell her the darkest secret of all. Tomorrow I have an appointment with my solicitor. I need to make sure that I keep my estate and the investments. For afterwards.  

    For after T has gone. For after I’ve killed him.